22.5.06

Zombie cockroaches

This is just incredibly gross and incredibly fascinating. Apparently, a parasitic wasp has evolved to prey on a certain kind of cockroach by injecting a venom into its brain. The cockroach then becomes completely pliant, and allows the wasp to lead it back to its burrow by its antennas, where the wasp lays eggs, and suddenly, we're in Ridley Scott/Sigourney Weaver country. Check out the bottom of the comment thread too, for perspectives from the researcher himself.

I live in Oslo, Norway. Where I work as a journalist in the literary supplement to the daily newspaper Klassekampen.

This is my personal blog, which I've kept on and off in one incarnation or another since 2003. I post both in Norwegian and English. If you want to read the blog exclusively in one of these languages, use the links below: